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Comment by mulmen | Hacker News Reader

I really hate the “end of the empire” or “late stage capitalism” attitudes. They’re ignorant and self-fulfilling.

If you really believe it then please go out in the world and engage people in a positive way. Go do some volunteering. Not to make a change in the world but in yourself.

If you don’t believe this and are just repeating a meme for clout or whatever then just stop. It’s toxic and unfunny. Like “locker room talk” or whatever other lame justifications are offered for people to say gross things nobody needs to hear.

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How would it be self fulfilling? I'm not in the driver seat, I'm in the backseat watching the driver slam the accelerator into a brick wall. Whether or not the wall is fascism or collapse, it mostly looks like both.

It’s self fulfilling because you (we) are in the driver’s seat. These tried arguments are dangerous because they make people believe they are powerless.

What worries rather me to be honest, is people refering positive to the thought of being an empire in the first place and just negative that the empire is in decline.

What worries me even more, is that people end up missing the entire point of an argument because they can't seem to be able to pick up on uses of figures of speech within a context, so when they see the word 'empire' they think you mean literal empires, get fixated on that one thing turning it into the main issue, and then the rest of the argument and discussion goes above their head becoming pointless. Even LLMs are better than that.

>I really hate the “end of the empire” or “late stage capitalism” attitudes. They’re ignorant and self-fulfilling

When you put down all the dots and they form a line that trends in one direction, it's just reality. Ignoring it and calling it "self fulfilling" as if it's a thing that you personally have control of, IS what's ignorant.

>If you really believe it then please go out in the world and engage people in a positive way. Go do some volunteering. Not to make a change in the world but in yourself.

Being a decent human being does not undo the politically induced global economic issues related to the "late stage capitalism" you mentioned. It's two orthogonal things that are unrelated.

I’m not ignoring anything.

What I hate about these tired memes is that they suggest there’s nothing we can do to move those dots. We do still live in a functional democracy regardless of what internet commenters suggest. It is possible to make changes.

Saying otherwise is ignorant (of our own power) and toxic (by perpetuating the wrong belief that we are powerless).

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